


A Little Torn At The Edges

by captain_bucky_writesaswell



Category: Queen of the South (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Comfort, F/M, photograph
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-28 06:19:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15701568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captain_bucky_writesaswell/pseuds/captain_bucky_writesaswell
Summary: When she came back to the kitchen, James hadn’t moved from the breakfast counter. She’d been gone for 40 minutes but he was still sat, wallet in hand.Had he been gathering the right words to say to her? Now that she knew he had people he cared about, cared enough about to keep a photo of them in his wallet. She slowed as she walked in, realising he was still there.





	A Little Torn At The Edges

**Author's Note:**

> i'm a soft jeresa fan and you'll figure this out soon enough :)

Teresa never asks about his family, and he never speaks about it.

So when she realises there’s people in the photo that fell from his wallet, she averts her eyes to the change and continues to pick it all up. 

James still not looking up at her, he helps her put the rest of the change back and then reaches for the photo, neither of them saying a word. He places it back into its position in his wallet and then hands Teresa the cash she was short on. 

“Thank you”

“Yep” - James nods to her, still not looking her in the eye.

Teresa quietly claps the cash into her spare hand and turns to walk out to her car. Pote had offered to drive with her so she wasn’t alone, but since she was going to the pharmacy, she thought he might feel awkward being there. 

Teresa was extra emotional in the last couple of days, and there was only one explanation for it. 

She drove straight back to their house and went up to her bathroom to place things where they needed to be.

When she came back to the kitchen, James hadn’t moved from the breakfast counter. She’d been gone for 40 minutes but he was still sat, wallet in hand.

Had he been gathering the right words to say to her? Now that she knew he had people he cared about, cared enough about to keep a photo of them in his wallet. She slowed as she walked in, realising he was still there. 

James looked up to her as she headed to get a glass of water, noticing the pills in her hand, he assumed a concerned look on his face and asked:

“ You alright? ” - Nodding towards the pills as she turned to him with the glass.

“ Yeah, I’m fine, it’s nothing don’t worry. “

He lowered his head back down to look at his wallet and she took this as a signal to leave him alone. Just before she exited the kitchen he spoke up:

“ They’re my grandparents ”

Teresa stopped just before the door and turned slowly to look at him. Waiting for an invitation to move closer to him.

James continued:

“ My mother’s parents; when mine died, I went to live with them. I’d never met them before. I thought they were going to be just as dysfunctional and brutal to me as my parents were. ”

Teresa inched closer towards him, slowly with caution. She didn’t want to spook him off from telling her anything else, all the while he’s looking down at his wallet on the counter.

“ They were the first people that were ever nice to me. Not because they had to, but because they wanted to. They were good people. They didn’t have to take me in but they did, gave me a home… my first home. “

It was when he said this that he looked up to Teresa. His eyes begging her to come to him, welling up a little as he brought his attention to the seat next to him and then his hands. Teresa had realised that he does this when he’s anxious, his hands twitch and ball into fists. And one day he’d eventually tell her why… maybe it was today.

Was it the fact that his mother abused him whilst his father was overseas? And every time she hit him, he refused to retaliate. Balling his hands into fists so tightly that his nails dug into his palms and cut through his skin. The reason why he keeps his nails so short now, so that he couldn’t inflict this pain on himself again. The years of abuse left him pawing at his own palms as an adult, subconciously, every time he would get nervous. He has anxiety and he knows it. Teresa has noticed it too. She’s the one who comforts him as he cries himself to sleep at night. Never asking _why_.

When his father was at home, everything was worse. 

When James was older, he stood up to his father for beating his mother. He doesn’t know why he did this, but he defended her, the woman who disrespected her only child. 

Instinct. Action. Reaction - 

When he saw her being pushed against the wall, James the thirteen year old boy swung at his father’s side with the same baseball bat that his mother hit him with. The force enough to move his father off of her. The fight continued and James won the battle. 

This was the _first_ time that James snapped. 

He didn’t kill him. But he wished he had. He did his time at a young offenders. He was there for a few months. The judge let him off earlier for defending his mother and for sticking to his conversion scheme. When he got out, he didn’t expect his mother to be at the gate to pick him up, she’d only been to see him in there twice, he would never expect her to show up. 

When an older couple were already waiting for him, that’s when he found out what had happened. 

His parents were arguing as usual in the car. It was raining and his father skid the car off of the road through the barrier into a 20ft drop. 

This was the _second_ time that James snapped. 

Was it relief? He didn’t _care_. _Why_ should he care about them?

The entire drive to Arizona, James wondered what his new life would be like with his grandparents, who he’d only ever seen in a couple of photos.

Teresa was sitting a foot away from James, putting the pieces of his story together and understanding why he is who he is. His loyalty to women, which she still didn’t quite understand after what his mother did to him, came from his grandmother. 

He explained how she gave him a life, a home, and took away some of his pain - it was Teresa who took away the rest. 

He explained that they died several years ago while James was overseas. That this was the reason why he came back, he had to sort out selling their belongings and their house.

“ This was our home ” - he says to Teresa, pointing upwards and circling his wrist, his voice mellow.

Teresa, resting forward with her elbows on the counter looked up, confused.

“ I thought you sold it? ”

“ I did, soon after they died. That’s when I got into some trouble and fell in line with Camila. I was using and I had missed some payments. So instead of getting myself killed, I took out the assassin that came for her without her asking. I worked for her ever since then. When I left her, I used the money she gave me to buy back this house. ”

Teresa felt warm knowing that she was being allowed to live in the house that James grew up in. She had already started to tear up. 

She could imagine him outside with his grandfather practicing his pitches, the garden area was long enough for that. 

James unfurled his wallet and pulled out the picture from earlier carefully. 

It was of him and his grandmother on his first birthday with them in this house. His grandfather smiling in the background.  

He handed it over to Teresa.

“ Here… ”

She looked back and forth from him to the picture and took it into her hands. It was small, torn at the edges, but it was perfect. James’ smile going from ear to ear as he stands with his grandmother. The proud grin on her face is just as wide as his. He looked happy. _Truly_ happy.

“ I want you to keep it ”

Teresa looked quickly back up to his eyes.

“ No, I couldn’t, I - ”

“ Please? ” - James cuts her off from saying any more.

“ She would have liked you, a lot. ”

He paused for a second, looking softly into her eyes.

“ You have the same spirit as she did, rescuing strays… And I loved her. ” 

Teresa nodded and smiled sincerely.

He didn’t need to say anything else. 

She reached for his hands and put them into hers, leaned forward and placed the softest kiss on his lips. When they parted, he rested his forehead on hers, and smiled to himself, knowing that she is _the one_. She accepted everything he told her and didn’t ask any questions. She understands him now. 

And he wasn’t going to let her go.

After the day’s work at the winery James had gone out for a while and Teresa had tucked herself into their room. This was still very much a man’s house, no hot water bottle, heat pad, cake or anything like that.

There was a gentle knock at the door. James quietly opened it and made his way into the room. Teresa, half asleep, looked up to him. He could tell all day that she was in pain, and there was nothing he could do about it. 

He moved over to her side and handed her a brand new filled hot water bottle with a fluffy cover, and a selection of a few different chocolate bars… the important items. 

She smiled graciously at the chocolate and then him. He kissed the top of her head and turned to walk away to sleep in one of the spare rooms, he usually gives her space at this time and doesn’t ask any questions. Before he could get out of the door Teresa beckoned him back -

“ You can stay you know ”

Wanting her to have space but still be close to her, he pulled up the comfy chair from the corner of the room and placed himself in it next to the bed, next to her. 

She’d eaten some of the chocolate and fallen asleep with the bottle pressed to her stomach. James watched her from his chair as she slept.

He ran his fingers over the top of her head and kissed her gently, before putting the chair back and pulling a pillow onto the floor.


End file.
